'Hey listen cowboy…' he said. Tom grabbed him by the throat, freed the colt and took the whip out of the boy's other hand with a twist that made him yelp. The colt ran off across the yard, saving itself. Tom had the whip in one hand and the other still clamped on Eric's throat so that the boy's frightened eyes bulged. He held him there in front of him, their faces not a foot apart.
'If I thought you were worth the effort,' Tom said, 'I'd whip your no-good hide from hell to breakfast.'
He shoved him away and the boy's back thumped against the wall, knocking the wind clean out of him. Tom looked back and saw Mrs Dyer coming into the yard. He turned and stepped around the side of the trailer.
As he came through the gap, a woman was getting out of a silver Ford Lariat parked beside the waiting taxi. For a moment he and Annie Graves were face to face.
'Mr Booker?' she said. Tom was breathing hard. All he really registered was the auburn hair and the troubled green eyes. He nodded. 'I'm Annie Graves. You got here early.'
'No ma'am. I got here too damn late.' He got into the cab, shut the door and told the driver to go. When they reached the bottom of the driveway he realized he was still holding the whip. He wound down the window and threw it in the ditch.
Chapter Eleven
It was Robert who finally suggested going to Lester's for breakfast. It was a decision he'd worried about for two weeks. They hadn't gone there since Grace started school again and that unspoken fact was starting to weigh heavily. The reason it hadn't been mentioned was that Lester's excellent breakfast was only part of the routine. The other part, just as important, was taking the crosstown bus to get there.
It was one of those silly things that had started when Grace was much younger. Sometimes Annie came too but usually it was just Robert and Grace. They used to pretend it was some grand adventure and would sit at the back and play a whispered game in which they took turns elaborating fantasies about the other passengers. The driver was really an android hitman and those little old ladies rock stars in disguise. More recently they would just gossip but until the accident it had never occurred to either of them not to take the bus. Now neither was sure if Grace would be able to climb onto it.
So far she had been going to school two and then three days a week, mornings only. Robert took her there by cab and Elsa collected her by cab at noon. He and Annie tried to seem casual when they asked her how it was going. Great, she said. Everything was great. And how were Becky and Cathy and r
Mrs Shaw? They were all great too. He suspected that she knew full well what they wanted to ask but couldn't. Did people stare at her leg? Did they ask her about it? Did she see them talking about her?
'Breakfast at Lester's?' Robert said that morning, in as matter-of-fact a voice as he could muster. Annie had already left for an early meeting. Grace shrugged and said, 'Sure. If you want to.'
They took the elevator down and said good morning to Ramon, the doorman.
'Get you a taxi?' he said.
Robert hesitated, but only for a beat.
'No. We're getting the bus.'
As they walked the two blocks to the bus stop, Robert chattered away and tried to look as if it was natural to be walking this slowly. He knew Grace wasn't listening to him. Her eyes were locked on the sidewalk ahead, surveying its surface for traps, concentrating hard on placing the rubber tip of the cane and swinging her leg through behind it. By the time they got to the stop, despite the cold, she was sweating.
When the bus came, she climbed in as though she had been doing it for years. It was crowded and for a while they stood near the front. An old man saw Grace's cane and offered her his seat. She thanked him and tried to decline but he wouldn't hear of it. Robert wanted to scream at him to let her be but didn't and, blushing, Grace relented and sat down. She looked up at Robert and gave him a little humiliated smile that smote his heart.
When they walked into the coffee shop, Robert had a sudden panic that he should have called and warned Lester so that no one would make a fuss or ask embarrassing questions. He needn't have worried. Perhaps someone from the school had already told them, but Lester and the waiters were their normal brisk and cheerful selves.
They sat at their usual table by the window and ordered what they always ordered, bagels with cream cheese and lox. While they waited, Robert tried hard to keep the conversation going. It was new to him, this need to fill the silences between them. Talking with Grace had always been so easy. He noticed how her eyes kept drifting off to the people walking past outside, on their way to work. Lester, a dapper little man with a toothbrush moustache, had the radio on behind the counter and for once Robert felt grateful for the constant, inane babble of traffic news and jingles. When the bagels arrived Grace barely touched hers.
'Like to go to Europe this summer?' he said.
'What, a vacation you mean?'
'Yes. I thought we could go to Italy. Rent a house in Tuscany or somewhere. What do you think?'
She shrugged. 'Okay.'
'We don't have to.'
'No. It'd be nice.'
'If you're good, we might even go on to England and visit your grandmother.' Grace grimaced on cue. The threat of dispatching her to see Annie's mother was an old family joke. Grace glanced out of the window then back at Robert.
'Dad, I think I'll go in now.'
'Not hungry?'
She shook her head. He understood. She wanted to get into school early, before the lobby was crowded with gawking girls. He knocked back his coffee and paid the check.
Grace made him say goodbye on the corner rather than walk her down to the school entrance. He kissed her and walked away, fighting the urge to turn and watch her go in. He knew that if she saw him look, she might mistake concern for pity. He walked back to Third Avenue and turned downtown toward his office.
The sky had cleared while they had been inside. It was going to be one of those icy, clear blue New York days that Robert loved. It was perfect walking weather and he walked briskly, trying to drive away thoughts of that lonely figure limping into school by thinking of what he had to do once he got into work.
First, as usual, he would call the personal injury lawyer they'd hired to look after the convoluted legal farce Grace's accident seemed destined to become.
Only a sensible person would be fool enough to think the case might boil down to whether the girls were negligent in riding on the road that morning and whether the truck driver was negligent in hitting them. Instead of course, everybody was suing everybody: the girls' health insurance companies, the truck driver, his insurance company, the haulage company in Atlanta, their insurance company, the company that the driver had leased the truck from, their insurance company, the manufacturers of the truck, the manufacturers of the truck's tires, the county, the mill, the railroad. No one had yet filed suit against God for letting it snow, but it was still early days. It was pure plaintiff-attorney paradise and it felt odd to Robert to be looking at it from the other end.
At least, thank heaven, they'd managed to keep most of it away from Grace. Apart from the statement she'd given in the hospital, all she'd had to do was give a deposition under oath to their lawyer. Grace had met the woman socially a couple of times before and hadn't seemed troubled by again having to go over the accident. Again she had said that she could remember nothing after sliding down the bank.
Early in the new year the truck driver had written them a letter, saying he was sorry. Robert and Annie had discussed for a long time whether or not to show it to Grace and in the end decided it was her right. She'd read it, handed it back and said simply that it was nice of him. For Robert, just as important a decision was whether or not to show it to their attorney who naturally would seize upon it gleefully as an admission of guilt. The lawyer in Robert said show it. Something more human in him said don't. He'd hedged his bets and kept it on file.